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Sunday Summary: July 3, 2016

Hello! I’m Jeb, and I’ll be subbing in this week for the streets.mn Sunday Summary. Hope your long weekend is going well! This week we’ve had a number of articles that are worth your time to read and peruse. This week I’m keeping it simple, going from oldest to newest.

On Tuesday, two posts came through the hopper. The first was Car-free Commute to the Suburbs, a post by Sam Rockwell about his commute from Minneapolis to Eagan. His trip involves two bike legs, including one through much of Eagan, and he shares a pictoral summary of that bike leg of his commute. Our second post comes from Bill Lindeke, covering the Map of the Day: Metro Housing Price Changes over Time. This post looks into a map of housing pricing changes within the MSP metro area, noting a few of the trends. The commenters build on this and discuss further housing price trends within the metro area.

Wednesday’s articles mostly revolved around the Acme Comedy Theater parking situation. Acme Comedy Club Threatens to Leave Minneapolis Over Parking by Lindsey Wallace, was the longer of the two, offering an analysis of the situation, options available, and arguing that Acme is able to stay in their current venue. The Day the Laughter Died by John Edwards offers a similar commentary, but in a more humorous vein and from another perspective. Both have had heated comment sections, with some substantial discussion coming out of both. Both are worth your time to peruse. We also had our weekly news article links post from Jeff Wood, this week including links about the Portland streetcar, congestion pricing in Beijing, and the London Thames Embankment. Take a peek!

On Thursday, Al Davison built on last week’s conversation with Bill Lindke by offering some insights on the process for how MnDOT reviews road traffic and lane data in his own article, Analyzing Potential Road Diet Candidates in St. Paul. It includes an interesting insight that, due to data moving to a new system, the current traffic data is from 2014. Al also offers his insight on which roads may be worth further study for road diets and a reminder that even if the data initially supports a road diet, further review may find reasons why a road diet may not work. Another article that’s worth your time to read and review.

Finally, on Friday Monte Castleman offered a very extensive review of traffic control signs and signals that can be used, when they are warranted, and when they should not be used in the article Warrants and Justifications for Traffic Signs. It detailed at exactly what level of traffic stop signs, HAWKs, and other traffic control devices can be used, and offered situations on when traffic signs are and are not justified (for example, stop signs are not justified simply to control speed.) Discussion on the merits of the rules ensued in the comments section. Take some time on your Sunday to peruse this article and its comment sections.

That’s all for this week! May you have an amazing Fourth of July weekend!